The Amulet of Samarkand

summoning horn and closed his eyes.
    Nathaniel
     
    He closed his eyes to the chaos in the hall and breathed as slowly and deeply as he could. Sounds of suffering and terror still came to him, but he shoved them from his mind with a force of will.
    That much was relatively easy. But a host of inner voices were speaking at him, and he could not shut their clamor out. This was his moment! This was the moment when a thousand insults and deprivations would be cast aside and forgotten! He knew the incantation—he had learned it long ago. He would speak it and everyone would see that he could not be overlooked again. Always, always he had been underestimated! Underwood had thought him an imbecile, a fool with barely the strength to draw a circle. He had refused to believe his apprentice could summon a djinni of any kind. Lovelace had thought him weak, childishly softhearted, yet likely to be tempted by the first cursory offer of power and status. He had refused to accept that Nathaniel had killed Schyler too: he had gone to his death denying it. And now, even Bartimaeus, his own servant, doubted that he knew the dismissal spell! Always, always, they cast him down.
    Now was the moment when everything was in his hands. Too often before he had been rendered powerless—locked in his room, carried from the fire, robbed by the commoners, trapped in the Stricture.... The memories of these indignities burned hot inside him. But now he would act—he would show them!
    The outcry of his wounded pride almost overwhelmed him. It pounded on the inside of his skull. But at the deeper core of his being, beneath this desperation to succeed for his own sake, another desire struggled for expression. Far off, he heard someone cry out in fear and a shudder of pity ran through him. Unless he could bring the spell to mind, the hapless magicians were going to die. Their lives depended on him. And he had the knowledge to help. The counter-summons, the dismissal. How had it gone? He'd read the incantation, he knew he had—he'd committed it to memory months before. But he couldn't concentrate now, he couldn't bring it to mind.
    It was no good. They were all going to die, just as Mrs. Underwood had died, and again he was about to fail. How badly Nathaniel wanted to help them! But de sire alone was not enough. More than anything else he had wanted to save Mrs. Underwood, bring her from the flames. He would have given his life for hers, if he could. But he had not saved her. He had been carried away and she had gone forever. His love had counted for nothing.
     
    For a moment, his past loss and the urgency of his present desire mingled and welled within him. Tears ran down his cheeks.
    Patience, Nathaniel.
    Patience...
    He breathed in slowly. His sorrow receded. And across a great gulf came the remembered peace of his master's garden—he saw again the rhododendron bushes, their leaves glinting dark green in the sun. He saw the apple trees shedding their white blossom; a cat lying on a red-brick wall. He felt the lichen under his fingers; saw the moss on the statue; he felt himself protected again from the wider world. He imagined Ms. Lutyens sitting quietly, sketching by his side. A feeling of peace stole over him.
    His mind cleared, his memory blossomed.
    The necessary words came to him, as he had learned them sitting on the stone seat a year or more ago.
    He opened his eyes and spoke them, his voice loud and clear and strong. At the end of the fifteenth syllable, he split the summoning horn in two across his knee.
    As the ivory cracked and the words rang out, Ramuthra stopped dead. The shimmering ripples in the air that defined its outlines quivered, first gently and then with greater force. The rift in the center of the room opened a little. Then, with astonishing suddenness, the outlines of the demon crumpled and shrank, were drawn back into the rift and vanished.
    The rift closed up: a scar healing at blinding speed.
    With it gone, the hall seemed cavernous and empty. One chandelier and several small wall lights came on again, casting a weak radiance here and there. Outside, the late afternoon sky was gray, darkening to deep blue. The wind could be heard rushing through the trees in the wood.
    There was absolute silence in the hall. The crowd of magicians and one or two bruised and battered imps remained quite still. Only one thing moved: a boy limping forward across the center of the room, with the Amulet of Samarkand dangling from his